This album is absolutely brilliant, from out of nowhere
lands an album that blows me away. American band Herod delivers thrash
metal with both energy and emotion as well as strong melodies.

The bottom line with Herod is that the music is growing
from Metallica and Megadeth with leads and breaks and now we are talking
about the great era around Master Of Puppets and And Justice For
All, how about that. Throw in a couple of Iron Maiden harmonies and
leads as well and we are getting pretty close, just listen to the opening
of Winter's Bane. Herod feels like a very modern band that also has
strong similarities with contemporary American metal with bands like
Godsmack and Creed but mostly Disturbed with the modern sound mixed
with clean guitar melodies.

The thrash leads, hardcore/punk breaks and the metal melodies
blends greatly with the soft and emotional vocals from Judah Nero, even
if he also with a controlled sense and angry voice master the skill
of growls I think it is his voice that makes me draw most of the similarities
with the modern American metal. And if that wasn't enough they also
manages to create some solid death metal as well.

Just as in When Your Body Falls the death metal is mixed
with the American sound, imagine something along a mix of Dark Tranquillity
and Disturbed. The lead part is right down the alley of Dark Tranquillity
with the melody and vocals while the song in the chorus slows down with
a clean voice so that Disturbed becomes a closer comparison. The End
shows more comparisons towards Swedish melodic death while The Green
Feeling shows furious Slayer-like solo parts. Constantly Herod feels
modern and fresh with their sound that is highly energetic and even
groundbreaking at times, this music speaks directly to me. Well perhaps
not groundbreaking but they do have something great in them.

With the calm track The Finch Against The Fire we get
a breather before Herod once again starts to tastefully portioning out
the aggression. Herod successfully balances up the more aggressive and
faster parts of the music with the softer emotional singing of Judah,
that is a mixture that appeals to my ears.

On what can be seen as a negative side is that I find
it hard to get stuck with any of the tracks, all are more or less equally
good and none of them falls out of frame. Even if I would liked one
or two tracks that rose above the rest I really don't care much since
For Whom The Gods Would Destroy is such a solid album and so competently
well done.

Seriously I think its best you listen to them and decide
for yourselves what to think because I find it hard to give a fair picture
of Herod, there is so much to their music and many references to compare
with that it easy to miss things, but to put it in short you have contemporary
American metal on top of classic Metallica thrash with emotional vocals
combined with Swedish melodic death. It feels fresh and modern with
emotion and most of all it feels big and highly energetic.